Valentine radar detector: false laser warning due to brake lights?

Anyone else get false laser warnings due to brake lights from certain vehicles?

Just today the brake lights from a GMC Envoy was causing my Valentine

1 to think there was a laser gun in front of me. It's not the first time a recent model SUV-type vehicle's brake lights causes the laser warning to go off.

My Valentine is either '99 or '2000 vintage. Are the current models any better (in any way) vs mine?

Reply to
MoPar Man
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Mine is '02 vintage and I get it too, seems to be only the neon type brake lights, incandescent and LED don't seem to bother it.

nate

Reply to
Nathan Nagel

It's somewhat buried on the valentineone.com website...

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you don't have laser out there, you can disable it. I just about sh*t myself last summer - drove into Reno at night and I thought my V1 was going to blow up it was beeping so hard. All the Neon out there really throws it for a loop. It was the first time I had heard the laser mode and it seemed to be coming from everywhere...

Reply to
Ray

Yep. I just press mute and back the heck off from those dang Chevy Suvs - usually 6-8 sec. following distance keeps the V1 quiet.

Yeah, I'm pretty used to this now - and I know for a fact that the cops ain't running no stoopid laser in a 15kph traffic snarl on East

49th! So I just press mute and keep my distance, letting engine braking take care of things. This seldom causes any trouble, because I can always ooze up a little again when the invariable happens and someone slots into the large gap.

You'll hafta either disable the LD (NOT recommended 'cos it does work, even though laser detection is always a bit touch'n'go) or just live with the "bug". Some Chevy etc. taillights do seem to emit enough electromagnetic "radiation" at ~332THz to send V1 into Wail, Wail, Go Ballistic Mode.

'Fraid not. Damn those Chevy trucks! *smirk*

Reply to
Ricardo

A laser is (essentially) just a concentrated light beam. I service equipment that uses lasers. In some test equipment, we use LEDs to "simulate" the output of certain lasers. (for the receiving equipment) Depending on what technology is used in a brake light, I can easily see how a V1 could be fooled by certain brake lights. They'd have to have "hot" spots, though, I would think, to trigger the V1. -Dave

Reply to
Dave C.

Not just vehicles -- there's a video billboard along US 101 in Redwood City, California that always falses my V1. It's next to the Liberate building, and is an upgraded version of the old Circle Star theater marquee (demolished and replaced with Liberate).

Like someone else said, laser is just concentrated light, so most any concentrated light source can set it off. Too bad laser jammers are illegal in California -- but I haven't seen too many LEOs using laser here anyway, so it's all rather moot for me.

Reply to
Bob Flaminio

I believe this happens because V1 is so hypersensitive to 332THz signals. It hasta be so as to provide even a measurable chance of detecting a real police laser in time.

Chevy trucks/Suvs set mine off all the darned time. I just press mute and back off a little and hey, whaddyaknow, bliss again. :}

Reply to
Ricardo

Reply to
Matt

How about a big neon beer sign in my back window :)

nate

Reply to
Nathan Nagel

snipped-for-privacy@spamfreezone.yahoo.ca (Ricardo) wrote in news:3f71fcd0.1999510@news:

Where did this "332 TeraHertz(THz,10E-12)" figure come from? AFAIK,laser speedguns use a 904 nanometer(10E-9) wavelength laser diode,with a very short pulse width of ~30 nanosec,and pulse repetition rates of ~500hz.

Something does not compute.

Reply to
Jim Yanik

"Matt" wrote in news:Mvncb.3678$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdny02.gnilink.net:

I suspect the V1 simply looks for PULSED IR light.Perhaps within some window of pulse length,and probably not band-filtered for any particular wavelength.

Reply to
Jim Yanik

tera = 10^12, not 10^-12.

Wavelength and frequency of light are related by

c = lambda * nu

Where c is the speed of light, lambda is the wavelength, and nu is the frequency.

The wavelength corresponding to 332 THz is (3e10 cm/s) / (332e12 s^-1) = 9.04e-5 cm = 904 nm. As you say...

Yes, it does.

Reply to
Matthew Hunt
[snip applied "v = f x LAMBDA" formula]

Someone's on the ball! :}

Sure seems to eh? :} It's always nice to cast a new perspective on things, especially something as innocuous and nightmarish as a police laser. I really almost have had nightmares about those darn things.

Reply to
Ricardo

snipped-for-privacy@wopr.caltech.edu (Matthew Hunt) wrote in news:bktcl3$sut$ snipped-for-privacy@naig.caltech.edu:

Yes,you are absolutely correct.Thanks.

Reply to
Jim Yanik

Thank your lucky stars. Though Vascar is evil too fwiw.

Reply to
Ricardo

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